Monday, August 25, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

Teachers warn: Students can barely write by hand

Published 26 June 2023
– By Editorial Staff
Many Swedish children rarely or never write by hand.
2 minute read

The digitalization of the school world has meant that Swedish students write less and less with paper and pencil. Now a large number of teachers are warning that many children are writing illegibly – and that the rapid digitalization can have major negative consequences.

2000 teachers responded to a survey by the professional magazine Ämnesläraren (The subject teacher), and almost all of them believe that it is important for students to write by hand in school. However, almost one in five teachers (18.5%) say that their students rarely or never do this.

According to Professor Göran Lundborg of Lund University, author of the book ‘The hand in the digital world’, some teachers may be afraid of appearing ‘backward’ if they require students to write by hand.

– It’s easy to be seen as a nerd if you don’t fully embrace digitalization, says Lundborg.

– You don’t just learn with your brain, but with your whole body; the movements of the hand seem to engrave memory traces in the brain. The very grip of the pencil and the fine motor movements over the paper activate different areas of the brain, he adds.

He says that parents often express concern and complain that children can barely write by hand anymore, that their spelling is poor and that they mostly communicate via very short messages on their cell phones.

At the same time, it must be noted that children are already gaining early experience of the digital world outside of school and kindergarten. Against this background, it seems more important for schools to focus on handwriting skills.

Barbro Westlund, a teacher trainer and lecturer, says that in her professional life she has encountered a large number of parents and teachers who have complained about their children’s lack of writing skills, and she too believes that it is very important for young people to practise writing by hand.

I have met so many teachers and parents who have testified about how carelessly children write by hand as they get older. They haven’t had enough practice writing legibly.

Writing letters with a pen makes it easier for the brain to remember them than pressing keys. But before writing the letters, children can shape them with their bodies or make big hand movements in the air. Playing with letters in different ways is also important for learning to read, she explains.

According to Westlund, her colleagues in Finland believe that Swedish schools are quick to jump on “different trends” whereas in Finland there is a more negative attitude towards abandoning tried and tested ways of working, which is why digitalization in schools has not been as rapid as in Sweden.

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Somali teen humiliated 8-year-old in robbery: “Looked like a racist”

Deteriorating safety

Published today 10:56
– By Editorial Staff
Police in Västerbotten County, northern Sweden, confirm they have seen an increase in humiliation robberies over the past year.
3 minute read

An 8-year-old boy in Umeå, northern Sweden, was subjected to a humiliating robbery where he was forced to remove all his clothes and do push-ups. The 16-year-old perpetrator, originally from Somalia, claims in police interrogation that he targeted the little boy because he “looked like a racist”.

The incident occurred on a Saturday afternoon in May when the 8-year-old boy was out cycling. A 16-year-old from Somalia stopped him on the bike path and threatened to call his friends if the boy didn’t obey his orders.

The child was then forced to strip completely naked and perform push-ups while the 16-year-old played music and cycled around him. Eventually, the 8-year-old managed to flee home through the forest – still naked.

The boy’s father Lenny describes the traumatic moment when his son came home.

— He comes running in completely naked. ‘I’ve been robbed, help’. He’s in a state of panic, says the father, describing the course of events further to Swedish public radio SR.

— It’s a guy, a youth who chases after him and forces him to give up his bike, bike helmet, socks, underwear, shirt. So he’s completely naked and forced to do push-ups.

The parents immediately alerted police who found the boy’s clothes at the scene, but the perpetrator had already disappeared.

Wanted to “beat up” 9-year-old

The weekend after, the boy and his father saw the 16-year-old at a football match. Police were alerted again but arrived only after the match had ended and everyone had left. With the help of the description, Hassan, as the 16-year-old is named, could be identified and arrested.

It then emerged that Hassan had tried to take the bike from another boy, nine years old, two days earlier. In interrogation, he stated that he had intended to “beat him up”.

In the police interrogation, Hassan confirms the course of events but doesn’t believe he committed any crime. He says he “just wanted to see the boy’s reaction” and thought he would resist. He then claims that the real victim is himself – and that he felt targeted by the child’s alleged racism.

— He took it as if I was going to rob him because of my skin color. I’m not saying that’s how it is, but it could be. He doesn’t want to talk to me. If you had been there, you would have seen how he behaved. Like a racist! says Hassan in the interrogation and continues:

— He looked like a racist! I think he’ll vote for SD [Sweden Democrats] when he gets older. I don’t know if that’s what he was thinking, but it could be.

Father: “How can someone be so cowardly?”

The boy’s father is very upset about the incident and the Somali’s cowardly behavior.

— How can someone be so cowardly as to target such a young guy just to humiliate. It’s completely insane, says Lenny.

He also believes that the problem with humiliation robberies is no longer just found in major cities:

— It’s not just about Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö and their various areas. But it also exists here in Umeå unfortunately, you can’t turn a blind eye to the problem.

Sweden Democrats leader: “The new Sweden”

Police in Västerbotten county confirm that they have seen an increase in humiliation robberies recently and that they have investigated about ten similar cases in the past year.

Hassan is now being prosecuted for unlawful coercion and unlawful threats. Under current Swedish legislation, however, he cannot be deported as he has been granted Swedish citizenship.

The brutal case has received significant attention on social media where many are horrified by a societal development where even small children risk being subjected to brutal and traumatizing attacks in broad daylight. Sweden Democrats MP Richard Jomshof is among many who have reacted strongly.

“This is the new Sweden, where Swedes have to accept being humiliated and robbed by imported perpetrators, without anyone caring”, he writes among other things.

Lawyers and accountants help criminal networks in Sweden

organized crime

Published 22 August 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Respectable professional groups often sell services to criminal networks for money laundering and shell companies.
2 minute read

False identities, corruption and violence. Organized crime is becoming increasingly sophisticated and poses a growing threat to Swedish society, shows a new situation report from 14 Swedish authorities.

Drug crimes, fraud, environmental crimes and organized theft are identified as the greatest societal threats from organized crime. Behind the crimes lies an advanced criminal infrastructure where gang criminals use false identities and shell companies to launder their criminal proceeds.

The new inter-agency situation report reveals how criminals’ strategies are becoming increasingly advanced. Violence and threats, corruption as well as countermeasures against authority operations are used systematically to protect criminal activities.

— We see, among other things, that crimes that affect many people and companies in everyday life, volume crimes, are very organized and often carried out very professionally, so we cannot just investigate these crimes away, they must also be prevented, says Johan Olsson, chairman of the operational council and head of the Swedish police’s national operational department (NOA).

Lawyers and accountants help criminals

The report identifies five crime areas that contain all six types of criminal infrastructure: drug crimes, fraud, environmental crimes, organized theft crime and crimes against international sanctions. Almost as serious are VAT fraud, excise tax crimes and organized crime in working life.

A central part of the criminal structure is so-called enablers – people who sell their services to criminal networks. This involves everything from money laundering and transport to arranging companies and false identities. According to the report, these enablers are often found among professional groups such as lawyers, brokers and accountants.

The authorities warn that criminals are expected to adapt further to avoid prosecution. Several worrying trends are already visible: criminals use foundations and non-profit associations for their activities, protect assets through false documents and identities, and move operations abroad – particularly to countries without extradition agreements with Sweden.

— The situation report shows the importance of countering the criminal economy, more efforts against enablers and strengthening international cooperation in crime fighting. Both in the authorities’ individual work and in the inter-agency initiative, several initiatives are ongoing to strengthen efforts against the problem picture described in the situation report, explains Olsson.

Vattenfall to build small modular reactors

Published 22 August 2025
– By Editorial Staff
The SMR reactors will be built on the Väröhalvön peninsula, where the Ringhals nuclear power plant is located in southwestern Sweden.
2 minute read

Swedish energy company Vattenfall plans to build small modular reactors, known as SMRs, in its future nuclear power expansion. The plan is for new nuclear power to be operational in Sweden by the mid-2030s.

The small-scale nuclear reactors will be built on the Väröhalvön peninsula, where the Ringhals nuclear power plant is located, as the company considers it the “best location” to get new nuclear power operational in Sweden as quickly as possible. The state-owned energy company justifies the decision to use SMRs for technical reasons, but also because the peninsula has limited space.

We have concluded that small is better than large conventional ones, Vattenfall CEO Anna Borg tells TT and continues:

But it’s a broad concept, in this particular case the reactors are not very small but they are smaller than traditional large-scale ones. Large-scale reactors would have entailed higher risks for us at this specific site.

Vattenfall has moved forward with American GE Vernova and British Rolls-Royce, both of which manufacture SMRs. However, it’s not clear which one it will ultimately be, but the plan is to either start a project with five BWRX-300 reactors from GE Vernova or three Rolls-Royce SMRs. According to reports, this would provide a total capacity of 1,500 megawatts. For comparison, a 500-megawatt SMR has the same capacity as the first large-scale reactor in Oskarshamn, Sweden.

First Swedish nuclear construction project in over 40 years

Furthermore, the company is also exploring possibilities to build an additional 1,000 MW at the adjacent site where Ringhals 1 and 2 currently stand, but that would be a future project.

This is another step toward the first Swedish nuclear construction project in over 40 years. Our goal is a successful project on the Väröhalvön peninsula, and by that we mean there are conditions to become operational within reasonable time and budget at the site we have available, says Borg in a press release.

The goal is for new nuclear power to be operational by the mid-2030s.

Rejecting boys – Swedish women on sex-selective abortions

Published 22 August 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Women testify about aborting male fetuses – and then lying about having miscarriages.
2 minute read

Several women testify that they have had repeated abortions to have children of their desired sex. In closed Facebook groups, women share their experiences of how they rejected fetuses that don’t match their dream image.

Sofia had three sons when she became pregnant for the fourth time. With the help of a so-called NIPT test, she received information about the fetus’s sex as early as week ten. The answer crushed her.

— It was a boy and my whole world fell apart, says Sofia, who chose to remain anonymous, to Sweden’s public broadcaster SVT News.

Together with her husband, she had already made the decision: if it was another boy, they would terminate the pregnancy. The dream of having a daughter was so strong that it took over everything else.

— It was right. I knew I wouldn’t be whole otherwise, says Sofia.

— It hurts so much when others have girls. This is so strong that it overrides everything else, she continues.

Had two abortions – then went abroad

Sofia underwent a total of two abortions before she and her husband finally chose another path. They went abroad for IVF treatment with sex selection – something that is not permitted in Sweden except in exceptional cases involving hereditary diseases.

— If it had been legal in Sweden, it wouldn’t have had to go this far, she claims.

Sven-Eric Söder, chairman of Sweden’s National Council on Medical Ethics, is clear about where the line is drawn according to Swedish legislation.

— There is a possibility if parents carry a hereditary disease. We have legislation, and I think it is ethically correct that we don’t choose characteristics of our children, he says.

Facebook groups reveal the extent

Sofia is far from alone. In closed Facebook groups that focus on sex selection, women openly share their experiences of sex-selective abortions and testify to an extremely strong desire to have a daughter.

“Unfortunately got the answer at the beginning of the week that it was a boy (have two from before). Even before the answer came, my partner and I agreed that we would have an abortion if that was the case. So today I had a surgical abortion, was at week 12+0. Feel so guilty toward the little baby in my belly…” writes one woman.

Another tells: “I’m also not good at lying, but I have had an abortion because I was expecting a boy and called it a miscarriage to those around me”.

“I have had an abortion for the same reason as you… However, it’s so tough and I can still feel anxiety toward the fetus in hindsight”, reads another post.

According to current Swedish abortion legislation, women have the right to free abortion until the end of pregnancy week 18. The woman does not need to state any reason for the abortion. After week 18, permission from the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen) is required, which is only granted if there are special circumstances.

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